1ClickPrint provide cheap printing and business printing services in the UK. Reliable and quick we can print high quality Litho, Digital prints and many more.

With a minimum order size of only 1 and pricing from £1.50 per shirt, 1ClickPrint can offer the value, quality and speed of service you deserve. We provide the full range of printed garments using the latest technology to print any design possible. Our online design engine is perfect for creating custom t-shirts for stag, hen, sports team, work t-shirts and more. We cater for orders of one shirt for the perfect gift through to orders of thousands of shirts for promotional giveaways.

Modern T-Shirt printing makes use of four main printing techniques for creating custom t-shirts. Each of these techniqies has it's strengths and weaknesses and we have all of them at our disposal.

Screen printed t-shirts will be the most familiar to customers. These are the shirts that you would generally buy from the high street. The finish on these shirts is slightly rough and a little rubbery to the feel from the plasticol inks and none contact heat tunnel curing that is used. The costs of production per shirt is very low at high volumes but generally isn't viable for small quantities. Each colour on the shirt requires it's own screen to be made. This can run to many screens on some designs as screen printing struggles with shades of colours and so process printing can often result in unsatisfactory results. An example would be a full colour photograph. If screen printed this would generally result in the subject looked overly tanned with definte borders wher one shade ends and another begins. An average price as of 2009 would be £25 per screen set up cost on top of the cost of t-shirt printing hence the very high cost for small print runs. Screen printing does excel when there are only a small number of colours on a shirt and the volumes are pretty high. The cost of the actual t-shirt printing for a one colour shirt can be measured in pence rather and the £1 plus of digital printing. In addition to this pantone coloured inks can be applied to shirts (a white underbase would be required on dark shirts) this contrasts with digital t-shirt printing where process printed colours are the only option and so pantone colours can only be approximated. In conclusion screen printed shirts excel with designs that are limited in the number of colours, the volumes are high (50+ for a single colour print), an exact pantone colour is needed or the customer would like a durable, familiar finish. Screen printing is not suitable for full colour designs or low volume orders.

Transfer printing is a popular and inexpensive method of printing t-shirts. Cheap transfers can be bought from stationers such as WH Smith or Staples and then ironed onto T-Shirts. The results from these store bought transfers is a stark comparison with professional quality prints and is generally, considering t-shirt are meant to be worn in public, quite embarassing and won't last past the first couple of washes. That is not to say that transfer prints themselves are fundamentally flawed. Professionally produced transfers are generally printed on a laser printer to prevent banding and applied using a high quality heat press to ensure perfect adhesion. The end result often has a slightly rubbery feel and would be as durable as a screen printed garment. Transfers themselves come in two flavours. One for white shirts and one for dark shirts. Transfers for white shirts use the white of the shirt as a backdrop as your home printer uses the white of the paper it prints on. Full colour designs such as photos are reproduced with reasonable accuracy and the cost of production is quite low. The white shirt transfers themselves use a special backing that is pressed onto the shirt and seals the printer toner to the shirt with a waterproof and durable finish. One of the negatives of this method is that the transfer is applied as a sheet and not only where there is print. This rectangle can sometimes be seen on the shirt but generally isn't to much of an issue. Dark transfers are unable to use the colour of the shirt as a backing and so take the form of solid rectangular blocks of solid white. This is fine for designs that are rectangluar but generally means that printing text or irregular shapes is not an option unless the customer is happy to have a solid block of white around the design. As the dark transfer forms the backing of the print the toner is exposed on the print. This isn't a problem with regards to durability as the toner is very well bonded to the transfer and shirt during the pressing process. It is during this pressing process that some of the toner can sometimes fail to bond to the transfer properly and result in a slight uneveness in dark solids on the design. As transfer are printed digitally they have no setup costs beyond the labour involved. This means they are ideal for small order such as an average stag or hen party. The end results are ususally far exceed the needs for promotional or short term use shirts but would not normally be up to the standards expected by retail customers who are used to the finish and feel of screen printing. In conclusion transfer t-shirt printing excels for small orders, full colour images and rectangular designs but struggles with irregular shapes (especially on dark shirts), high volumes, large blocks of solid colour and is not usually upto resale quality. These trasfers are placed by hand which means there will be variations in the positioning of the prints on each shirt.

Vinyl transfers are perhaps the second most popular method of t-shirt printing. A computer controlled cutter is used to cut a design out of a special vinyl. This vinyl is then removed from its backing sheet and applied to the garment using a heat press. The finished result is perhaps the toughest of all t-shirt printing methods and is very well suited to work wear. The vinyl is manufactured in a wide range of colours and is fantastic for simple solid colour designs but as not well suited to complex designs such as small text or logos. Multicoloured designs are very difficult to produce and generally result in a poor finish. Vinyl is placed on the shirt by hand and so suffers from the same placement variations as transfer printing.

Direct to Garment (DTG) t-shirt printing is the newest method for creating custom t-shirts and has replaced sublimation printing as the preferred method for many companies. T-shirts are loaded onto a platen in a similar manner to screen printing but then textile inks are physically printed onto the shirt using a dedicated inkjet printer. DTG printing excels at producing complex and full colour designs and can print on white and dark shirts. It is however a fairly new technology and is still maturing to some extent. DTG t-shirt printing onto white garments is reliable, reasonably fast and cheap. The designs have very little of the wander that hand applied transfers suffer from and have none of the physical set up costs of screen printing. Dark shirts do cause more of a problem as, similar to transfers, a white underbase needs to be created for the design to be printed on. DTG printers achieve this by physically printing a titanium based white pigment onto the dark shirts before the design is printed. As the printer prints the underbase only where it is needed, complex designs can be created with ease. The underbase does need a very tight weave of shirt to appear solid and so isn't suitable for use on most polo tops and some shirts. In addition to this the application of the underbase slows down and increases the cost of the print process significantly. For most designs onto dark shirts screen printing becomes the most economical print method at about 100 shirts. DTG t-shirt printing also struggles to print large blocks of solid colour, especially lighter colours, and also tend to over saturate the colours to some degree. DTG printing is a fantastic new option for small run and complex designs but due to the problems it can encounter on some shirts and with some designs we'd advise having a test print before ordering a large run for resale.

Sublimation T-Shirt printing is a common method available in many smaller print shops. The equipment needed in minimal and the results can be satisfactory. The main limitation is that t-shirt printing using sublimation can only be applied to white polyester t-shirts. Shirt manufacturers have managed to create double layer shirts that have a cotton inner layer for comfort. These shirts are generally thick and bulky but also double the price of a standard cotton shirt. Sublimation t-shirt printing is able to reproduce full colour images with fairly good colour accuracy and the prints tend to have a pretty good resistance to fade from washing. As time progresses sublimation is being replaced by DTG t-shirt printing due to the increased flexibility of DTG machinery. Sublimation printing reamins a strong and preferred method for printing on to other media such as mugs, mouse mats keyrings, etc.